


Transparent Summer

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:39:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3529793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Trevelyan is reckless, Sutherland has a crush, and Dorian is implausibly (but I hope amusingly) clueless.</p><p>Spoilers for Sutherland's quest arc.</p><p>I think I'm better at angry and brooding than witty and charming, but this started rattling around in my head and I couldn't get it to leave me alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" because Whitman and Dorian go together well in my world:
> 
> "I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,  
> How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,  
> And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart..."

Horseshoe nails.

There's some silly ditty about horseshoe nails that I can't ever quite remember, about how small coincidences concatenate into catastrophe. Looking back on everything, it's terribly appropriate, even if the end result was the very opposite of catastrophe (despite my best efforts, honesty compels me to admit). Of all the coincidences that centered on the Inquisitor, the one that mattered most to me personally is the one that will never make it into any bard's tale. History will remember Corypheus and the Inquisitor, clashing across an entire continent with men and magic. 

Me? I'll remember Blackwall, falling off a bridge. 

He wouldn't have been up on that bridge if a rockslide hadn't blocked the pass Sutherland had intended to take us through, nor would he have been on the bridge if the Inquisitor had chosen to take the long way around, instead of Sutherland's "shortcut." That shortcut involved a bridge that looked a hazard to life and limb, but Blackwall started across, never mind the cracked boards and frayed rope, paying far too much attention to what was directly under his feet and not nearly enough to what was ahead of him. He still would have been fine, if that stupid bird hadn't waited to take off until he'd almost stepped on it. 

But the pass was blocked, the Inquisitor did decide on the shorter path, and the bird did wait until that last moment. It fluttered up into Blackwall's face, startling him mid-step. He tried to recover and missed his footing on the uneven boards, tumbling over into the water. Made an almighty splash when he hit, too. He's not a small man, and then add nearly my body-weight in armor and sword and shield? It's a wonder we got him back on land before he drowned. 

Ahem. 

Well.  

By "we", I mean "Cassandra." Sutherland and his crew only gaped, Trevelyan stood on the bridge shouting encouragement, and nobody in their right mind asks me to do anything requiring physical strength. I think Cassandra might have fainted in shock if I had offered, and my "help" would have more closely resembled "hindrance" whatever my intentions. Cassandra certainly didn't bother to see if anyone else was moving before she dove in after Blackwall. The man would have drowned, waiting on the rest of us. 

In any event, Blackwall cracked his head on the way down, and came out of the water disoriented and staggering. We got him stretched out on the ground, and I did what I could for him, but we were out of potions and I'm much better at breaking heads than fixing them. 

"We can take him back to camp," Sutherland offered, while Trevelyan frowned, caught somewhere between concern and annoyance. "It's not too far." 

"It's not," Trevelyan agreed, "but we might as well go back if you are. You're the one showing us the way, remember?" 

We all looked at Sutherland expectantly, and he turned bright red, as if this was the worst rebuke he'd ever received. I think that may have been the first time I looked at him and saw a person, rather than an extension of Trevelyan that somehow managed to walk and talk on its own. It certainly wasn't a favorable first impression. I understood the desire to impress the man who had invested so much in him, mostly on faith, but his intense embarrassment over something so small still made me roll my eyes. How old was he, exactly? 

In the end, Sutherland sent his crew with Blackwall and continued on with us. I can't say the choice thrilled me. Blackwall might be a judgmental prick, but he was a judgmental prick with a large shield, that he used to good effect. I'm exceedingly fond of people with large shields who know how to use them, and Sutherland looked even less prepared for a slog through Crestwood than I was. 

Prepared or not, he took the lead. It would have been difficult for him to fall behind, seeing as he _was_ the only one who knew where we were going, but he looked over his shoulder every third step as if concerned we might have slipped away as soon as his back was turned. 

"Is he trying to imitate Blackwall?" I murmured to Cassandra, the second time Sutherland tripped because he was paying more attention to us than to the path ahead of him. In the detached tone of an instructor watching a pupil botch some basic spell, I added, "Should I tell him it won't impress Trevelyan, or would the lesson make more of an impact if he learns it himself?" 

She didn't even bother to look at me, but I heard the laugh she swallowed. She's not half so serious as she tries to be, and why she tries, I don't know.

We made good time at first, but no trip with the Inquisitor would be complete without bandits of some flavor. At least this time, we heard them before we walked right into them. From the other side of a low ridge, I heard someone laugh and say, "So I kicked him in the head 'til he was dead!" as if it were the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

Charming.

Sutherland looked a little green, but he followed Trevelyan into the fight without hesitation. A little hesitation might not have been a bad thing, given the Inquisitor's disregard for such small things as "common sense" and "prior planning" and "not dying spitted on the sword of some idiot who couldn't find Tevinter on a map." But when Trevelyan dashed off, Sutherland was on his heels. Cassandra cursed him, as she always did, and ran after, as she always did, hoping to keep the Inquisitor alive long enough for his death to be useful. And like I always did, I brought up the rear at a safe distance, one sharp eye out for anyone lurking. 

My first blast of lightning, arcing from one enemy to the next, did in fact turn up a lurker hiding behind a tree, seconds before Sutherland would have gotten a knife between his shoulder blades. Jolted by the lightning (I do so love it when they wear metal armor), the lurker fell against the tree he'd been hiding behind. 

The rattle-scrape of metal and leather against wood brought the boy's attention to his danger, and he made good use of his erstwhile attacker's momentary paralysis. I was glad to see he didn't hesitate: some people leap when they should pause, and think too long when they should be leaping. If he was going to be foolhardy and follow people into fights without looking, at least he was quick to strike when necessary. 

The fight didn't last long, and Sutherland didn't embarrass himself. Trevelyan gave him an approving nod as the last bandit fell, and the boy stood as straight as if he'd been presented a medal in front of the entire Inquisition. 

Maker save me from enthusiastic children. They're so precious it makes me ill. 

Nauseating or not, I didn't wish Sutherland dead. I raised an eyebrow at Trevelyan. "We might want to exercise a little more caution next time. Not everyone has your experience, Your Worship." I didn't look at Sutherland when I said it, but I didn't need to. 

Trevelyan's eyes rolled upward briefly, likely more for my use of the honorific than the rest of it, and said, "It turned out well enough, but you're right." 

Sutherland frowned at me, as aware as everyone else who I'd been talking about and clearly displeased. I ignored him and knelt by the nearest corpse to examine it. 

It didn't take us long to search the bodies and take what little they had that might prove useful later, and then we were off again. Cassandra, Sutherland, and I stuck mainly to the path, but Trevelyan was his usual rambling self: jumping over rocks instead of walking around them, clambering up the hills to look around before running down to rejoin us, and generally covering three times as much ground as the rest of us combined. 

Just watching it was exhausting, and I was more than glad when we reached Sutherland's cave. 

"Good work," Trevelyan said, clapping Sutherland hard on the shoulder. "Did you look around when you were here last?" 

"No, Your Wor-" 

"If you're going to travel with us, it's Trevelyan. Or Inquisitor, if you must." 

Sutherland shot a quick look at me. "But Dorian..." 

"Dorian likes to be annoying." He smiled without looking at me. "So I recommend against following his lead on what to call people." 

This time, Sutherland's glance in my direction was more like a glare. I raised an eyebrow at him in my best "you bore me too much to even be worth a real expression" look, but honestly, I was beginning to enjoy myself. Perhaps we could bring Sutherland along on other, less dangerous missions, for the amusement he provided. 

"Don't listen to Varric, either," I said helpfully. The first time Sutherland called me Sparkler, I'd shove sparkly up his ass, and I had a feeling most of the others felt the same about their nicknames. Varric got away with it because he was Varric. Sutherland didn't have half as much charm, or so I thought at the time. "Never trust a dwarf who fondles his crossbow like that." 

"In any event," Trevelyan said, pretending to ignore me, "you said you didn't look around much?" 

"No," Sutherland said, and I could see him swallow the honorific. "We were told to find it and report back, nothing more, so that's what we did." 

"Smart," Trevelyan said with a nod that pleased Sutherland. "No telling what's in there." 

"Far too many darkspawn," I said. "And likely a demon or three." 

Sutherland was caught between fear and excitement. "What happens now?" 

I knew both what Trevelyan _should_ say and what he likely _would_ say. Short one fighter (because Sutherland didn't count), out of potions, faced with a cave full of darkspawn and a Fade rift at the end? We should return to camp, rest and resupply, and face this fresh, with a full complement of competent people. 

"Let's look around a bit before we head back," Trevelyan said, with that look in his eyes I had learned to be wary of. "A little more information will let us come back better prepared." 

Which was complete bullshit. We'd push right on through to the end if Trevelyan thought we could do it, even if it meant we staggered out the other side barely able to find our way back. 

Cassandra knew it too, by her disapproving frown. "Are you sure?" she asked, with a glance at Sutherland. 

The boy hunched his shoulders but said nothing. 

"We won't go far," Trevelyan said. "Just a quick look to get an idea of what we'll be heading into. No farther than the daylight reaches, how about that? When we can no longer see the cave mouth, we'll turn back." 

So in we went, into yet another cave full of things that wanted to kill us. I would follow Trevelyan anywhere, but before the end, the man taught me a deep antipathy toward dark, enclosed spaces. 

I complain, but I will admit to sharing a bit of the thrill that blinded Trevelyan. If I'd wanted to sit quietly inside where I wouldn't risk tearing my robes, I'd have stayed in Minrathous. Well, maybe not Minrathous, but when I fled my father, there were plenty of safer places I could have gone. Honestly, just about anywhere would have been safer than Trevelyan's wake. At least until Corypheus won, and then Minrathous would be no safer than anywhere else. 

A quick check of the first section of cave revealed no immediate threats, so we spread out to look around. It wasn't long before a shout from Sutherland brought us all running, only to find him red-faced and unwilling to meet anyone's eyes. "It looked like a spider," he muttered, gesturing at the clump of mushrooms clinging to the cave wall. "I hate spiders." 

"Not too fond of them myself," Trevelyan said, doing a masterful job of keeping a straight face. Cassandra found something on the ground that needed her complete attention, but I could see the smile she was trying to hide. 

"If I can give you a bit of advice," I drawled, because how could anyone expect me to resist, "I recommend against screaming, even if it's a real spider." Sutherland shot me a look, and I smiled innocently back. "Wouldn't do to let the other spiders know where you are. You might get bit by the one you _can't_ see." 

"Dorian," Trevelyan said warningly, in his most Inquisitorial voice. 

"Just trying to be helpful, Your Worship."

"Leave him alone."

"Yes, Your Worship."

Sutherland was smart enough to know that Trevelyan's defense of him wasn't the compliment it appeared; rather, he was being treated as a child, someone who couldn't take care of himself. Watching his face as he struggled to respond was quite amusing. If he let the Inquisitor fight this battle for him, however minor, then he was a child in the eyes of the man he most wanted to impress. If he protested, then he looked like an insecure adolescent. Which he was, but few people are as concerned with not looking like an insecure adolescent as those who are, in fact, insecure adolescents.

In the end, he just turned away and gathered up the mushrooms. Even in the brief time he'd travelled with the Inquisitor, Trevelyan already had him as well-trained as the rest of us: no rock uncollected, no possibly-useful plant unharvested, even if we already had piles of whatever-it-was back at Skyhold.

Cassandra stepped on my foot as soon as Sutherland wasn't looking, and I grunted involuntarily. "What?" I asked, stepping -- _limping_ \-- back and bringing up my staff to ward her off.

"You know _what_ ," she said, and she wasn't smiling anymore. "It's not nice to fluster the boy."

"And where did you get the idea that I was a nice man?"

"Try to pretend, then."

"That sounds suspiciously like work, and you know we...what's Bull's charming name? Oh yes. You know we 'Vints' prefer to leave all the hard work to slaves." I made sure to say it in my best simper, just to annoy her even more. I don't actually simper very well, but it was for a good cause, so I tried.

I'm sure Cassandra wanted to say that I'm very trying. Sutherland would have agreed with her, and possibly Trevelyan as well, but it was usually too hard to resist teasing any of them. Given where we were, and the darkspawn almost certainly lurking somewhere nearby, I managed to bite my tongue on any additional witticisms.

Sutherland's mushrooms proved to be the only useful thing in that first cave, and so we pushed on. Cassandra gave the receding daylight a last, forlorn look, then focused her attention on the path ahead. I resisted the urge to look back myself, mostly because the footing was bad enough I might have ended up like Blackwall if I hadn't paid attention.

Further in, we found a nice deep hole in the ground, because of course the day wouldn't be complete without one. The darkspawn guarding said hole were barely dead before Trevelyan went jumping over the side to explore. I hauled Sutherland back by one arm before he could follow. Just our luck, he'd miss the platform ten feet down, and fall all the way to the bottom of the pit, which was a good bit more than ten feet away.

When he looked at me, I pointed toward the ladder on the opposite side of the hole. "You're free to take the short way, but I usually prefer a more controlled descent."

"As do I," Cassandra muttered, heading for the ladder.

While we waited for her to finish climbing down, Sutherland looked over the edge of the pit again. "He's very active, isn't he?"

"The Inquisitor?" I asked absently, looking for more darkspawn.

"Yes. Is he always like this?"

I gave Sutherland a bit more of my attention. "What, running into every danger without bothering to think? Mostly, yes."

"I can hear you, Dorian." Trevelyan's voice floated up from below us.

"Oh good," I called back. "It would be a waste of my brilliant wit if you weren't here to appreciate it."

Sutherland tried to stifle his laugh, which only made it come out as a snort. Ah, perhaps there was yet hope for his sense of humor. "Does anyone ever manage to catch you without a witty reply?" he asked me.

"Of course not," I said, in mock offense.

"He thinks he's a wit, but he's only half right," Trevelyan replied, his voice more distant than before.

I laughed.

Sutherland blinked at me but said nothing, only stood aside so I could follow Cassandra down the ladder.

I was halfway down when I heard Sutherland shout, and for a moment, I thought it might be more mushrooms. Then I heard running feet, and the sound of steel hitting stone, and I scrambled back up the ladder as fast as I could, Cassandra nearly climbing over me in her haste.

The light was bad, the shadows a confusing mass of teeth and metal, but I took it all in at a glance. It's an important skill for anyone following Trevelyan around, being able to sort out chaos in time to get out of the way. Sutherland had no such skill. He was down, something large and carrying a notched axe standing over him with that axe already swinging down.

I got a barrier up around him barely in time, giving Cassandra time to close the distance and knock the darkspawn back with her shield. By the time I reached Sutherland, she'd cleared an area around him and was shouting a challenge at the darkspawn. The cave wall was at our backs, at least, and I planted myself in front of Sutherland's prone form, staff at the ready.

There was barely time to set another barrier before the horde descended, and for a little while, I couldn't spare so much as a thought for Sutherland. If we all died, it wouldn't much matter if he was badly injured or only momentarily stunned.

Trevelyan appeared from nowhere, knives flashing, only to disappear into another shadow. Cassandra's sword never stopped moving, but somehow her shield was always in front of me when it mattered. Which was quite often. Darkspawn aren't intelligent the way people are, but they have an animal cunning that kept them focused on me as I brought down lightning and fire.

The smell was nauseating by the time the last one fell: blood and shit and burnt darkspawn, all of it trapped by the cave walls. Breathing shallowly through my mouth, I knelt to examine Sutherland. The back of his head was wet with blood, and he wasn't moving.

"Maker preserve him," Trevelyan whispered, his voice full of horror. "This is my fault, I should never have brought him in here."

There was nothing I could say to that: any argument would have been a lie, and agreement wouldn't help.

"Can we move him?" Trevelyan asked.

"We can hardly leave him here."

"Dorian," he said, pressing bloody fingers to his forehead, "can we hold the sarcasm until I know whether I've gotten him killed?"

"He made his choice," I said, carefully rolling Sutherland onto his back. "He wanted to come with you."

"That's not helping." Trevelyan stalked away from me toward some crates we had looked through earlier. "He's a boy, and I should have known better."

Dire as the situation was, I was momentarily amused to imagine Sutherland's annoyance at this conversation. "So you'll have to live long enough for me to tell you all about it," I murmured to his unconscious body as I checked him for any other injuries. Some minor scrapes and bruises were all I found, but Sutherland didn't wake, and that robbed me of any lingering amusement. It worried Trevelyan and Cassandra, too. We were all but silent as we cobbled together a litter and loaded Sutherland into it.

Trevelyan went ahead, as the only one of us able to sneak with any skill, which left me to take the litter with Cassandra. It wasn't ideal for anyone, but we managed not to drop Sutherland or stumble into any more fights.

I tried to pay attention to our surroundings, even as the what-ifs and should-haves plagued me. I would never have admitted that I felt as responsible for the injury as Trevelyan, but the guilt left me ill. If I'd been thinking, I would have sent Sutherland down the ladder ahead of me, not left him alone up there. In the normal course of things, it made sense to leave Blackwall or Cassandra or the Iron Bull to take the rear guard, but Sutherland didn't have even half their experience. If I'd been thinking more about our danger and less about ways to torment him, this never would have happened.

The walk back to camp was grim and silent, and I suspected Cassandra's thoughts ran along the same lines as mine. Handing Sutherland over to the camp's surgeon did nothing to alleviate my guilt.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next week, the Inquisition's surgeons and healers proved their worth, getting Sutherland back on his feet none the worse for his experience but for a scar across the back of his head that his hair would cover soon enough. I didn't see him, but Trevelyan passed word to me as soon as he knew anything, which took a weight off me. So much of a weight that I'd mostly erased Sutherland from my mind by the time I saw him again.

I was in the library, sprawled in my favorite chair, booted feet propped on a shelf just because it annoyed Mother Giselle, when someone cleared their throat beside me. Looking up from my book, I found Sutherland, looking fit and clean and ridiculously young as he grinned at me.

"How old _are_ you?" I asked, without thinking.

"Old enough," he said, the smile sliding from his face.

I resisted the urge to say "Old enough for what?" and tried to repair the damage instead. That glib tongue, always getting me in trouble. "You're looking much better than the last time I saw you. Did the healers let you go, or did you sneak away before they forced any more disgusting potions on you?"

"I'm done with disgusting potions for the moment." He looked around the alcove, then leaned against the bookcase opposite me when he didn't find a chair.

Why he was settling in, I didn't know, but I marked my place with a finger and closed the book I'd been reading. At the very least, I could give him my full attention. "I'm glad to hear that. No lingering headaches, I hope?"

"None."

He didn't elaborate, so I asked, "Were you looking for something?"

"What?"

"Here, in the library. I assume that's why you came here."

"Actually, I came looking for you. The Inquisitor told me this was the best place to find you." At my raised eyebrows, he said, "I hadn't seen you, so I wanted to make sure you were all right after I nearly got us killed."

"The rest of us bear more responsibility for that than you. You should never have been in that cave in the first place."

"I know you all think I'm a child, but I'm not." He looked remarkably like a petulant child just then, but I was still suffering from enough lingering guilt that I kept my sarcasm under control.

Besides, the memory of what we had found in that cave when we returned to it didn't leave me inclined to teasing. I saw water-logged corpses for a moment, before I cleared them from my mind with an effort, and said, "I don't think you're a child, but you don't have nearly our experience."

"Liar," he said, a faint smile overtaking the scowl. "You think I'm about twelve, don't you?"

"Fifteen," I countered, and he laughed. It was good laugh, and it made me smile, even if it earned us both a severe look from Mother Giselle. All right: that it annoyed her made me smile even more broadly.

"What do I need to do to get promoted to sixteen?" he asked, eyebrows up.

All the answers I could think of were obscene, and while he was more than old enough to know what his cock was for, I wasn't interested in sending him screaming for Trevelyan. It was unlikely he knew that I preferred the company of men, and those conversations were always terribly awkward. Given that I would likely never speak to him again, there was no point in ending this conversation in so unpleasant a fashion.

"You know," I said instead, "you don't have to wait to take the ladder when there are a few dozen darkspawn running at you. While I don't usually recommend leaping after the Inquisitor, that might have been the time to make an exception."

He either didn't realize I was teasing, or chose to take the statement far too seriously. "But then we would have been fighting them on the platform."

"We almost ended up doing that anyway, and without you," I pointed out.

"I guess it just seemed like what the Inquisitor would do, holding the ladder until the rest of you could climb back up."

"Almost certainly true," I had to admit. "And yet, that doesn't actually make it the sensible thing to do. Trevelyan has many traits worth emulating, but you needn't try to emulate him in all things."

"I'll stick to the more admirable traits," Sutherland said, and he was smiling again. "Though sometimes it's hard to say which is which. What about this strange compulsion to collect every bit of elfroot in Thedas?"

"Definitely not an admirable trait. I've suggested he seek out a spirit healer, more than once."

"Oh, I don't know," Sutherland said, in a remarkably good imitation of my drawl, "if he charges into danger as much as you say, maybe he needs all that elfroot. I think they've used at least a stone of it on me, this last week."

"Quite selfish of you, using it all up like that. You'll have to be more careful in the future."

A woman I didn't know stuck her head around the edge of the bookshelves, looking pleased when she spotted Sutherland. "There you are!"

Sutherland jumped as if she'd pinched him, and shot me a guilty look for no discernible reason.

"Things to do?" I asked, ignoring the look because I had no idea what it meant.

"Another cave to find," the woman answered, then added to Sutherland, "But you'll be stuck with us, no prancing around with the Inquisitor this time." She sounded cheerful.

He hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between us, before he straightened from his slouch against the bookcase and touched his forehead to me in farewell. As they descended the staircase, I heard him say, "Admit it, you're just jealous."

"Of almost dying? Hardly!"

Sutherland's reply was swallowed by the thick stone, and I turned back to my book, fully expecting to never see him again.

Less than a week later, though, Trevelyan came by the library to collect me for a trip to the Hinterlands, and mentioned casually that Sutherland would be accompanying us.

"Is that wise?" I asked.

Trevelyan glanced around and lowered his voice. "It's mostly for him, honestly. Give him a little experience somewhere the worst thing we're likely to meet is an angry bear." His voice returned to a more normal level as we passed Solas, bent over one of the shards Trevelyan seemed to stumble over wherever we went. "Besides, I found another map, and I want to see where it leads."

The man was as compulsive about exploration as he was about elfroot. There'd be no living with him until he saw where this map led him, even if the only thing he found at the end was a rusty dagger and some bones. The satisfaction he would feel had nothing to do with the tangible results of the search.

So off we went to the Hinterlands, to see where Trevelyan's map led us and to give Sutherland some much needed experience. It wasn't a bad day, actually, as it involved significantly less killing of random strangers than I was accustomed to, and Sutherland turned out to be a decent traveling companion, when he forgot to be on his company manners in front of the Inquisitor.

A few days after that, we went back to the Hinterlands to explore another cave. Then a few days after _that_ , to the Storm Coast for spindleweed. Then back to the Hinterlands, to do a little shopping at Redcliffe and enjoy a meal at the Gull and Lantern. Every few days it was something else, and somehow, I always ended up accompanying them. I suspected Trevelyan knew he could play on my guilt over how close we'd come to getting Sutherland killed, where most of the others wouldn't have been so tolerant.

Which is how I found myself, a few days after we returned from the Orlesian court, struggling up the cliffs on the Storm Coast in Sutherland's wake, drenched by the inevitable rain and shivering in the wind. There would have been more shivering, except that climbing cliffs isn't easy work, and Trevelyan had this annoying tendency to travel in a straight line only when it _wasn't_ actually the quickest way between two points.

As we struggled after Trevelyan, I entertained Sutherland with stories from our stay at the Winter Palace. Trevelyan interrupted occasionally when my version deviated too far from the truth, but he was mostly content to let me embroider or cut where necessary to keep the story light and amusing. Which meant I left out Briala and Gaspard almost entirely, and lingered perhaps a little too long on the soldier we found in Celene's bed.

Certainly Sutherland gave me an odd look the third time I commented on how fit the man had been. The man himself was clearly an idiot (he'd let himself get pulled into a power struggle between the opposing leaders of a civil war, after all), but I could still appreciate the physical charms that had been on display. Those physical charms had been impressive, and I may have mentioned them more often than strictly necessary. It was no wonder Sutherland frowned at me in confusion.

Normally, I would have challenged Sutherland's look with one of my own, or a scathing comment that would have turned his ears red. I'd cowed older and more experienced men than he, and it wasn't as if I'd ever tried to hide my preferences from anyone in the Inquisition.

But while I hadn't tried to hide it, neither had I ever mentioned it in Sutherland's presence. My initial desire to avoid an awkward conversation with someone I would never see again had proved to be a problem, as the longer I avoided the subject, the more awkward it became. Something I had never intended to be a secret had begun to look like exactly that, and the longer I put off saying something, the worse it got. Now it was no longer a matter of avoiding awkwardness with someone I would never see again, it was a matter of avoiding awkwardness with someone I would see over and over again.

I really needed to find some way to drop it into conversation, but it's not something that comes up naturally in the course of a trip to Redcliffe. Besides, Sutherland had grown on me considerably over the past months. As much as I teased him, he actually had a number of redeeming qualities when he wasn't spending too much time worrying about the impression he was making. Those qualities, especially his willingness to laugh at my jokes, kept me from protesting when Trevelyan dragged me along on these excursions and made me reluctant to risk the easy camaraderie we'd established. And while he had nothing on the man in Celene's bed, he wasn't unattractive.

Thinking of Celene's toy and Sutherland together made me wonder what Sutherland would have looked like, stretched out in the soldier's place, naked in the warm glow of candlelight. For a second, the image was more real than the man beside me, so real I could feel his skin sliding under my hands.

As it always does, reality reasserted itself with a jolt. This time, that jolt took the form of a rock, turning under my foot while my attention was elsewhere. I regained my balance with only minimal damage to my dignity, shaking off the unexpected thought of Sutherland naked and straining up against me. Up until that moment, I had never thought of him as anything other than a boy.

Up ahead, Trevelyan darted sideways, drawing my attention until I realized he had only gone after some elfroot, growing a little to the left of our current path. Sutherland and I slowed our steps, not following, but giving our fearless and acquisitive leader time to indulge his illness and resume the lead.

"He did this at the Winter Palace, if you can believe it," I said to Sutherland, hoping my light tone masked any discomfort from the unexpected and unwelcome thoughts still lurking in my head. I'm not one to object to persistent images of attractive, naked young men, but it was strange to think of Sutherland that way, with the _boy_ (I reminded myself) right beside me.

"Did what?" Sutherland asked, and it took me an uncomfortable second to remember we were talking about the Inquisitor, and the Winter Palace.

"He collected every plant we passed, no matter how inconvenient the timing."

Sutherland laughed as if I was joking. "He did not!"

"Oh yes he did!"

"In the middle of the Winter Palace? Where did he even find any plants to harvest?"

Trevelyan, returning from his detour, caught the end of Sutherland's question and raised an eyebrow at me. "Telling tales, Dorian?"

I smiled indulgently at him. "Just educating the junior member of your entourage about your priorities. Most people would find the good will of the Orlesian court a bit more valuable than a few plants, so I thought it best that Sutherland be prepared in any similar situation."

"Most people don't find themselves up to their necks in darkspawn, walking corpses, and Venatori on a regular basis," Trevelyan said, but he was smiling as he resumed the lead, walking just far enough ahead that Sutherland and I could pretend he couldn't hear us, so long as we kept our voices down.

"But where did he even find plants?" Sutherland repeated.

"Oh, the Winter Palace has some lovely gardens."

"He chopped up the Orlesian empress's flowers?" Sutherland asked, horrified and laughing at the same time.

"Well, not when anyone was _looking_."

"Oh, well, so long as no one was _looking_ ," he said, imitating my tone precisely. He'd gotten quite good at that. "He really took the time to cut flowers? And where did he put them once he had them? Down the front of his tunic?"

"If he saw it, he had to have it, and I have no idea where he put them. Every moment we were away from the ball was a chance for someone to notice our absence and comment, but did he let that bother him? Of course not!"

"If these were plants from the empress's garden, they must have been rare..." Sutherland stopped when I shook my head. "Not rare?"

"Elfroot." I drew the word out for emphasis.

Sutherland shook his head slowly, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to believe me. "He stopped to pick a weed?"

"A useful weed," Trevelyan called back.

Sutherland and I shared a look of complete understanding, and I said, deliberately loud enough for Trevelyan to hear, "So useful he once abandoned us in the middle of a fight to pick some."

"It was one corpse, Dorian, and it was already on fire. I'd just have been in Cassandra's way."

"I believe Cassandra felt differently about the matter," I said, and I swear I could hear Trevelyan roll his eyes, even if I couldn't see it. Beside me, Sutherland shook his head and laughed, a chuckle that brought back my earlier picture of him naked.

Fortunately, at that point the path turned sharply upward once more, and I needed all my attention to save myself from a very quick and very unpleasant descent. At the top of the hill was the astrarium Trevelyan had been looking for, and he shot me a triumphant look. To Sutherland, I explained, "We tried to get up here a few days ago, and couldn't ever find a way that wasn't straight up."

"I told you there had to be a way," Trevelyan said, fingers already exploring the astrarium's curved surface. "They got it up here in the first place, after all."

"Just because there was a path centuries ago didn't mean it was still here."

"But it was." Trevelyan looked so pleased with himself, I let it go.

Sutherland had only been half-listening to our bickering, his eyes fixed on the astrarium, and I realized he'd probably never seen one before. Trevelyan must have come to the same conclusion, because he beckoned Sutherland over.

"It's called an astrarium," he said. "It's a kind of puzzle, in sets of three. If you can solve all three in a set and trace the lines they make, there's usually something interesting at the intersection."

"How do you solve it?" Sutherland asked, craning his head to see all sides.

"See these points here, and this picture here? You have to connect the points together to form the picture."

"That doesn't sound hard," Sutherland said, disappointed.

"Normally, no, but you have to connect them without repeating a line. No tracing the same path twice."

"Still doesn't seem hard."

"Give it a try then," Trevelyan said, stepping back to give Sutherland room.

Sutherland suddenly looked a lot less certain, but he stepped up and began to work. Soon enough, he was cursing at it under his breath, and not long after, he threw up his hands.

"I take it back," he said, pulling off his helmet to scratch his head. "You're right, it's harder than it looks."

Trevelyan shrugged and smiled. "It gets easier with practice." He took Sutherland's place at the astrarium, connecting all the points in less time than it had taken him to explain the process. As he marked the direction of the line on his map, Sutherland shook his head in wonder.

"That was amazing," he said, looking at Trevelyan with the admiration bordering on hero-worship I thought we'd trained him out of.

Annoyed for no reason, I said, "The trick is to start at a point with an odd number of lines."

Sutherland blinked. "What?"

"At least one point in every pattern has an odd number of lines connected to it. Start at one of those. Odd numbers. You know: one, three, five..."

"I know what odd numbers are, Dorian," he said with some exasperation. Then he considered what I'd said, looking back at the astrarium. "Is it really that simple?"

"Sometimes I need a second try if I don't pay enough attention," Trevelyan said, "but yes, that's really all there is to it."

A little of Sutherland's hero-worship returned. "Still, I wouldn't have ever thought of that. I'd have just tried until I stumbled on the right combination for each puzzle."

I bit my tongue, annoyed with myself as much as Sutherland, and determined not to sound like the insecure child I often considered him to be. I didn't need to prove myself to him, so why did it bother me that he looked at Trevelyan with the admiration that should have been for me?

Trevelyan gave me a look I couldn't read, narrow-eyed and half smiling, but when he spoke, it was to Sutherland. "It's been a useful trick, that's for certain. I'm glad Dorian found it and showed it to me."

Sutherland transferred his awed gaze to me. "It really is amazing. How did you figure it out?"

I shrugged. "I played with them a bit, that's all." In truth, I'd spent the better part of a night tearing my hair in frustration over sketches of the three astrariums we had managed to solve by sheer bloody persistence, but I wasn't about to admit that. Besides, I had found the pattern to the patterns in the end, hadn't I?

I realized with some chagrin that I was trying to impress Sutherland, a boy who hadn't been on his own even half as long as I'd been shaving. Trevelyan was still giving me that look I couldn't interpret, and Sutherland was still beaming at me like a fool.

Now thoroughly annoyed with all three of us and determined to make at least one other person as uncomfortable as I was, I smirked at Sutherland over my shoulder as I crossed to Trevelyan. By rights, I should have tripped and fallen off the cliff for giving so little regard to the uneven ground, but I made it to Trevelyan's side without stumbling. Once there, I placed a hand on one of his cheeks and pressed a lingering kiss to the other, before heading back down the hill. As I passed Sutherland, I said in a low purr usually reserved for bedrooms, or at least dark corners, "He keeps me around for more than my handsome face and glib tongue."

While the words themselves were true, the implication certainly wasn't. As far as I knew, Trevelyan didn't use his cock for anything other than pissing, but unlike some men, my personal preferences had never bothered him. Perhaps because he himself wasn't interested in men or women, or perhaps he was simply too focused on Corypheus. Whatever the reason, if anyone would let me get away with what I'd just done, it would be him.

I didn't look back, and Sutherland said nothing the rest of the day. It didn't please me as much as I'd thought it would, but at least I didn't have to worry anymore about finding a way to mention my personal preferences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trevelyan as wingman! And Dorian still manages to shoot himself in the foot...


	3. Chapter 3

I didn't see Sutherland for a few months after that. Trevelyan didn't ask me to accompany them on any more little jaunts, and I tried to pretend it didn't bother me to be left behind. When I didn't have anything better to worry about--and sometimes when I did--I would torture myself by trying to decide which of the others Trevelyan was taking in my place. It would have been a simple matter to ask around, but I refused to indulge whatever childish part of me wanted to know.

When I did see Sutherland again, it was entirely by accident. I was crossing Skyhold's courtyard, absorbed in my own thoughts, and almost walked right into the boy as he came out of the Herald's Rest. For a moment, I didn't recognize him, and my mouth was opening on some polite nonsense for this stranger, when he greeted me cheerfully by name.

"Sutherland," I said, managing to turn it from question to statement at the last second. Then I couldn't stop myself from adding, "You're looking well."

It was true. His armor showed only the lightest signs of wear, and it fit him far better than the hand-me-downs he'd been wearing the last time I saw him. As much as the armor, though, was the way he carried himself: there were hints of Trevelyan's swagger that hadn't been there before. His hair was a little long, his face unshaven, and he looked like a man instead of a boy for the first time since I'd met him.

Then he smiled in response to my compliment, and it was the same boyish smile it had always been. Well, mostly the same. Combined with the stubbled cheeks and his new confidence, the smile was now charming instead of foolish.

The rest of his crew was with him, and Sutherland introduced us again, but I was too dazed to remember any of their names. As this was now the second time I'd been told, it was going to be awkward next time I met one of them, but I couldn't make anything stick in my head. Even Sutherland's voice was different, more confident, without the undercurrent of anxiety that I had heard so often.

"We're on our way out," Sutherland said, looking past me toward the gate. Still without meeting my eyes, he said tentatively, "But maybe we can grab a drink when I get back? Maybe with the Inquisitor?" The last word had an odd tilt to it, as if his voice had tried to crack in the middle.

"I'll look forward to it," I said, and watched them head for Skyhold's gate with a strange suspicion growing in my mind. Was Sutherland infatuated with Trevelyan? It would certainly explain a lot, even if it did annoy me for no reason at all.

I was terrible company for the rest of the day, and I still hadn't shaken my bad mood the next day when I joined Cullen in the garden for our regular game. He won the first game, which did nothing to improve my temper, and I was well on my way to losing the second game when Cullen leaned back in his chair and nodded a greeting to someone I couldn't see.

"Morning, Commander," Sutherland said from behind me, and I barely kept myself from twitching. "Dorian," he added.

"Sutherland," Cullen and I said together. I stopped, and Cullen said, "Enjoying the garden?"

"Oh, I always do." He stood at my back for a moment, close enough I could almost feel the heat from his body, then came around to stand beside the table. "I didn't want to interrupt, but I'm off again in just a bit, and I wanted to give this to Dorian."

I stared at him, and at the book he was holding out, until my mother's voice in my head prodded me into the correct social response. "Thank you," I said, taking the book from him. "But you didn't need..."

He waved a hand to cut me off. "It's nothing, really. We found it yesterday, and I thought it might interest you. If it doesn't, I'm sure someone can find a place for it in the library." His tone dismissed the whole thing as a whim, but then he added, "Trevelyan always seems to be acquiring more books."

As a ploy to gain Trevelyan's attention, this wasn't bad, except that all such ploys were bound to lead to disappointment if the desired attention was for sex. I tried to think of some subtle way to break this to Sutherland, and couldn't think of anything that didn't sound horrible even before I said it.

"Thank you," I repeated instead. The book was a history of Tevinter that I'd read before, but not one Trevelyan had in his library. My mother had tried to instill a few social graces in me, even if I generally preferred sarcasm to sociability. I could almost feel her fingers pinching my ear. "It looks interesting."

"Good," Sutherland said, still casual. "Hopefully it will actually _be_ interesting, too." Before I could answer, he turned to Cullen. "Thank you again for your help, Commander. You were exactly right."

"Ah!" Cullen said, looking more interested in the conversation. "It worked, then?"

"Just like you said."

I pretended to listen as they talked in half sentences and fragments that would have annoyed me if I'd been truly paying attention. For that matter, my mother would have pinched both their ears for rudeness, having a conversation that so completely shut out the only other person nearby. Whatever they were discussing, it was something they knew well, and something I knew not at all.

Not that I was really paying attention, even though I made polite noises as if I was part of the conversation. Instead, I flipped through the book, glancing at a paragraph here and a sentence there, reminding myself of which history this was. By a stroke of luck, it actually was one of the more interesting ones. That would save me some lying, if Sutherland ever asked me about it later, though it seemed far more likely he would try to strike up a conversation about it with Trevelyan than with me.

One thing led to another, and Sutherland pulled up a chair to watch the remainder of our game. Which immediately forced me to actually pay attention to the board, so that I could snatch Cullen's victory away before it was too late.

Sutherland was much as I remembered him from the more pleasant moments with Trevelyan: quick to laugh, eager for new knowledge, and an excellent audience for my most outrageous stories. The petulance I'd seen flashes of before seemed to be gone completely, and it occurred to me to wonder how much of what I had seen as childishness had really been insecurity. It would be hard not to feel insecure, trailing along behind the Herald of Andraste. Whatever he'd been doing in the months since I'd last seen him, it had been good for him.

My attempts to enquire about that time were met with a casual shrug. "Running errands for the Inquisitor," he said. "You'd have been bored, but I needed to justify his faith in me."

"You've done far more than that," Cullen said approvingly.

Sutherland laughed this off. "I've made a start of it, at least, but you're not done with me yet, Commander."

"Good. I admit I was skeptical when Trevelyan first brought you to me, but I'm happy to be proven wrong."

"Keep it up and my helmet won't fit."

"I'm sure your crew will fix that, should it become necessary."

"They'd enjoy it far too much." There was real affection for them in his voice, something I understood very well. It was hard to fight beside someone and not grow at least a little attached to them. Even Blackwall didn't annoy me half so much as he used to.

We finished that game and were halfway through another before Sutherland stood. "I do have some errands to run," he said, "and they'll be looking for me soon, if they aren't already."

Just before he stepped from the gazebo, he turned and looked back at me. "My crew and I won't be long, today. Perhaps tonight you and I and Trevelyan can get that drink?"

"I look forward to it," I lied. As enjoyable as Sutherland's company had been this morning, my suspicions about his infatuation with the Inquisitor were growing, and an entire evening with the two of them might be downright painful.

Still, I'd agreed, and so I made my way to the Herald's Rest that evening, however reluctantly. Standing just inside the doorway, it was easy to spot Trevelyan and the back of Sutherland's head. They were alone at a table, Sutherland leaning across it with an air of such intense concentration that I turned to leave.

Trevelyan saw me before I could make my escape. "Dorian!" he called, and waved, as if I might have missed him.

Once at the table with a drink in my hand, my discomfort passed. The evening also passed, and quickly. The only awkward moment was when Trevelyan excused himself, presumably to piss, and Sutherland stared anxiously after him the entire time he was gone, responding to anything I said with distracted monosyllables. Not until Trevelyan returned did Sutherland relax.

Despite that, it was a more than pleasant evening, so when Sutherland appeared again a few days later, this time in the library, I wasn't displeased. He came bearing another book, one I hadn't read but had definitely heard of. More than heard of, in fact.

"Where did you find this?" I demanded, practically snatching it from his hands.

"Some ruin we went crawling through." He made a face. "I never knew how many elven ruins there were around here, but I think Trevelyan is trying to send us to all of them." Looking from my face to the book and back, he smiled a little. "Useful, then?"

"I don't know about useful," I said, opening it carefully, "but certainly rare. The Minrathous circle has a complete copy, as does Empress Celene. Otherwise, I've only ever heard of fragments, never more than a few pages together." Then I realized I'd as much as called the gift useless, even if I hadn't meant it that way, so I gave him my most charming smile. "It will likely be very useful, once I've translated it."

For a second, he blinked at me, lips parted as if he'd lost whatever thought he'd been about to voice, looking like the boy I was accustomed to. Then he shook himself, and smiled back, that blazing smile I'd seen for the first time just a few days ago. It was a smile guaranteed to scatter _my_ thoughts, and I was grateful the book gave me an excuse to look away.

 _He should be more careful with that,_ I thought, and wondered that Trevelyan could resist it. For myself, I thought about backing Sutherland up against the bookcase and really scandalizing Mother Giselle. Sutherland's lips were still slightly parted, and I could easily imagine kissing them, running my tongue along them and between them while my hands...

I stopped that thought before it could gain too much speed; I was already half hard, and the only thing that would make this more awkward would be if Sutherland noticed. Chasing Sutherland while Sutherland chased Trevelyan was a Bad Idea, and if it wasn't the worst idea I'd ever had, it would likely prove one of the most embarrassing.

 _No,_ I told myself firmly, and concentrated on the book in my hands. "Trevelyan will be pleased," I made myself say, because it was true. I didn't look up, though, because I wasn't sure what my face might reveal.

Which meant I couldn't read Sutherland's tone when his only response was "Good." By the time I looked up, he was already turned away, calling a loud farewell that got him a glare from a few of the library's other occupants, including Mother Giselle.

I saw Sutherland every few days after that, either in the garden in the morning with Cullen or in the evening at the Herald's Rest with Trevelyan. Every week or so, he would bring another book, sometimes ones I knew and sometimes ones I didn't.

"You're building the Inquisition's library almost as fast as the Inquisitor is," I teased him, after the fifth or sixth book.

"Seems a shame to leave them to mold in some dank hole in the ground," he said. Then he straightened abruptly, pulling something from his belt pouch. "I almost forgot these."

The small bag he handed me proved to have candied dates. "I trust these didn't come from some dank hole," I said.

"Not unless you count Redcliffe village."

For a moment, I remembered the alternate future I'd fallen into with Trevelyan, and barely controlled a shudder. "Not usually, no," I said with forced lightness. "And thank you."

He left soon after that, clapping me on my bare shoulder as he left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Cullen smirked at me and said, "I think the boy's sweet on you."

"Hardly," I murmured, considering the board. "It's Trevelyan he's obsessed with." My shoulder where Sutherland's hand had fallen was too warm, but I didn't touch it. If I did, Cullen would bring it up at inopportune moments for years to come.

"Trevelyan?" Cullen asked. "Why do you think that?"

"Because Sutherland talks of little else whenever I see him." I made my move and leaned back, taking the bag of dates with me.

"Hmmm." Cullen paused in his survey of the game to look up at me, still smirking. "But I notice his gifts aren't for Trevelyan."

"Books for the Inquisition's library don't count as gifts for the Inquisitor?"

In response, Cullen pointed at the dates in my hand. I shrugged. "It's hardly a secret I like them, and it's not me he talks about incessantly, is it?" I ate a few of the dates, then asked, "Have you heard from your sister lately?"

As I expected, Cullen quickly found another subject to discuss, and we didn't talk about Sutherland again.

Which didn't mean I wasn't thinking about him. In fact, he was so much on my mind that when I heard his name a few days later, I thought at first I was imagining it. We were gathering supplies in one of the camps along the Storm Coast, and I'd been warming my hands at the fire, thinking of nothing in particular. At the sound of Sutherland's name, I glanced around, and when I saw Trevelyan's grim face, I knew something was wrong.

"What's happened?" I muttered to Harding, who was standing beside me. She wasn't my first choice to ask such a question, as it's hard for me to whisper covertly in a dwarf's ear, but she was there, and Trevelyan was deep in conversation. The dwarf he was talking to looked vaguely familiar under a thick coating of mud.

"Sutherland," Harding began. The she paused and asked without looking at me, "You know Sutherland?"

Everything else receded as Harding's words dragged the right memory from my brain. Rat. The dwarf was called Rat, and she was one of Sutherland's crew, and why was she here by herself, plainly terrified, and was that _blood_ on her tunic?

"What about Sutherland?" I asked. My voice must have sounded odd, because Harding looked up at me.

"He's in trouble, and he sent Rat for help."

If she said anything else, I didn't hear it. I don't remember moving, actually. One second I was beside Harding, the next at Trevelyan's shoulder.

He looked up from Rat, and nodded. "Dorian, good. I need to grab a few extra supplies, then we'll be heading out fast. Let Cassandra and Bull know, will you?"

Our pursuit certainly started fast, but we slowed soon enough for Trevelyan to find Sutherland's trail. We knew generally where he was, but as there'd been a great horde of darkspawn on his heels when Rat left him, there was no telling where he and the others of his crew might have ended up. At least it was a horde, and not a Horde. A small mercy, but one I held to tightly.

As we searched, the ever-present clouds grew darker, the Storm Coast once again determined to live up to its name. Morning turned to afternoon, the trail leading us deeper into the mountains as the sun descended. We passed a disturbing number of darkspawn corpses, but no human or elven ones. I had one eye on the sky and one eye on Trevelyan when I heard it: steel and wood crashing together, and a voice shouting over it all.

Sutherland's voice.

The others heard it, too, and we broke into a run, Bull's longer legs putting him a few strides ahead of the rest of us. I came out of the trees into a rocky clearing, lightning already sparking between my fingers, just waiting for a target.

I took in the scene at a glance. A mass of darkspawn, intent on a narrow cleft in the rock face. Trevelyan, already jerking his daggers free of his first target's back. Cassandra, shield-to-shield with a hurlock. Bull, sword sweeping a wide arc around himself.

For the first time since I'd heard Sutherland's name that morning, I was calm. Beside me, a row of archers had lined themselves up oh-so-conveniently, and I let the lightning jump from my hands to the one closest to me. From there, it jumped down the line of them, arcing from chainmail to vambrace to helmet until five darkspawn archers were twitching on the ground, smoking lightly.

The fight was short and brutal, and once Sutherland and his crew appeared at the top of the hill, it was all over. Caught between the seven of us, the darkspawn didn't stand a chance. Being darkspawn, they fought to the bitter end, but it was their end, not ours.

When it was over, I climbed the hill as Sutherland descended, both of us reaching Trevelyan at the same time. "Rescuing me again," Sutherland said to him with a smile. "I'd hate it, if I weren't so glad to see you."

I looked around the clearing, really taking in the number of bodies for the first time. Sutherland's crew might have been trapped in the cave by the time we arrived, but they'd made a good show before that. Perhaps half the bodies around me had been dead before we arrived, and that didn't even include all the ones we had passed on the way here. We might still be rescuing him, but this had very little in common with the last time, all those months ago.

By the look on Trevelyan's face, he was thinking something similar. "You did well," he said quietly, squeezing Sutherland's shoulder. "You all did well."

Sutherland ducked his head, something I hadn't thought anyone actually did. "You taught me well." He looked up, straight at me, but I didn't think he was actually seeing me as he said to Trevelyan. "I couldn't die yet, too many things I still want to do."

A fat drop of rain landed on my head, which was all the warning we had before the sky opened up and let fall the rain that had been threatening all afternoon. This was no gentle shower, either. Rather, it rained as if someone had dumped a bucket over us. A very large bucket. An entire series of very large buckets.

There was a mad scramble for the narrow cave where Sutherland and his crew had been hiding, which proved to be significantly less narrow ten or so feet in. Even with seven people and their gear, the cave didn't feel crowded. Which wasn't actually a good thing: now that the battle was finished, we were all shivering in our wet clothes, the cave too large and drafty to hold the heat of our bodies.

The drafts meant we could have a fire, though, if we could find anything to burn. Trevelyan and Cassandra, Maker bless them, braved the rain once more to find wood, and I had it burning soon enough. It might not be the most glamorous skill, but the ability to light wet wood on fire is not to be underrated when traveling the Storm Coast.

"Magic exists to serve man," I quoted to the fire, earning a snort from Cassandra.

The extra supplies Trevelyan had gathered back at camp turned out to be a few blankets, tightly rolled, and extra rations, salted meat and dried fruit that exhausted my jaws before I was full. Sutherland and his crew had no such problems, devouring their share and mine in short order.

"We weren't prepared for more than a quick trip out and back," Sutherland explained to me between bites. "Water wasn't a problem, but we haven't had anything to eat since dawn."

I'd ended up sitting beside him, and I was too aware of our knees pressed together. When had I regressed to adolescence, that Sutherland's knee was almost enough by itself to counteract exhaustion, cold, and hunger? I had no desire to be seventeen again, I reminded myself.

"Tomorrow we'll get you something better than salted nug," I promised.

"If we can get back to camp," he said, a little gloomily. "I hate to admit it, but I have no idea where we are, and the rain will have washed away much of our trail."

"Trevelyan has the most amazing sense of direction," I assured him. "I can't tell you how many times I thought we were hopelessly lost, only to turn a corner or come over a hill and find we were almost on top of a camp. I think Harding leaves him secret trail signs."

Sutherland smiled reluctantly. "My sense of direction is usually just as good," he said. There was none of the defensiveness that would have been there a few months ago. If anything, he seemed to be laughing at himself. "And you came the same way we did."

"Yes, well, we weren't being chased by darkspawn, were we? Makes it a little easier to check for landmarks." I handed him the last of my supper and stood, needing to get away before I did something stupid, like wipe away the mud smeared across one of his cheeks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little unclear on the line between the ratings T and M, so I decided to err on the side of caution and change the rating to M.

Avoiding Sutherland for the rest of the evening was a simple matter of volunteering to stand guard at the cave mouth until he fell asleep by the fire. Healing potions are all well and good, but they put a strain on the body, and I doubt Sutherland had much time for thoughts before exhaustion clubbed him over the head. Trevelyan kept me company without speaking, both his presence and his silence welcome.

It turned out for the best that I escaped Sutherland by standing guard, because the darkspawn weren't all as dead as we'd thought. A few pebbles skittering down the slope above us was all we had before the first hurlock was on us. Those clattering stones were barely enough warning, and Trevelyan took a hard blow to his arm as he twisted away from the first attacker. Better his arm than his throat, of course, but I heard him swear and knew it wasn't a glancing blow.

If the darkspawn had caught us _completely_ unaware, they might have had a chance. As it was, fighting in the dark and the rain on a steep slope is not my first preference, and the bad footing was almost the end of me. I twisted sideways to avoid a sword swipe, and the ground under my foot gave way, sending me to my knees with my attacker behind me. Cassandra was there with her shield in a moment, but the force of the blow was enough to drive the metal edge of the shield hard into my back.

The fight was over by the time I regained my feet, Cassandra already fussing over Trevelyan's arm. That he didn't shrug off the attention told me everything I needed to know about how injured he was. He was still on his feet, though, and talking, if through gritted teeth.

Back in the cave, we found Sutherland and his crew just arming themselves, blinking in a way that said they had been woken from the deepest part of sleep and still weren't sure this wasn't a dream. I left them to see to Trevelyan, taking one of the blankets they had abandoned on the floor and retreating deeper into the cave.

It went farther than I had expected, far enough that I had to summon a tiny wisp of magic to light the way or risk cracking my head on the stone. From the cave where the fire was lit, I could hear an amazing amount of noise for only five people. Six, counting Trevelyan, but I knew his wasn't one of the voices I heard.

With the rest of them occupied, I could peel off my wet robes in peace, grimacing and muttering about my bruised shoulder without risking a scathing comment from the Iron Bull about how soft "Vints" were. I knew it was nothing compared to Trevelyan's arm, nothing compared to some of the injuries I had taken since I joined the Inquisition, but it still hurt, an ache that spread up to my teeth and down to my fingers.

Standing in a cave in wet trousers, even without the wet robes to go with it, didn't do much to make me any warmer, and my skin tightening in the cold only made the bruise ache more. I rolled both shoulders forward and back, hissing at the pain.

Then I hissed again as a cold hand closed on my good shoulder, turning me toward the wisp of light as someone muttered, "Maker's breath, you're lucky it didn't break your shoulder."

Sutherland. Of course.

Words failed me for a moment. At least with my back to him I didn't have to control my face, but the situation wasn't perfect, with his hand on my bare skin. I was too aware of each of his fingers where they lay against the front of my shoulder, of his thumb resting lightly at the base of my neck.

"How's Trevelyan?" I managed, and his hand spasmed, gripping tighter for a second before releasing me.

"I...don't know," he said, and now I did turn, too surprised not to.

Whatever he read in my face made him look down. "Sorry," he whispered. "I know the whole Inquisition would fall apart if he died, but when Cassandra said you'd been hit, all I could think about was making sure you were all right." At his side, his hands clenched and unclenched.

I wondered if I'd taken a blow to the head somewhere in the fight and hadn't noticed. Nothing made sense, all my assumptions about Sutherland's infatuation with Trevelyan scattered by that one sentence. Then everything came back together, only turned just a little bit, and I felt like the biggest fool in the history of fools. Cullen must have been laughing himself sick. Trevelyan, too.

One step brought me close enough that Sutherland looked up, startled, and it was all there on his face. How many times had it been there before, and I hadn't noticed, or hadn't understood? "You could have said something," I murmured.

"What?" he asked, and I realized that he didn't know what was going through my head. As many times as I had overlooked the obvious in the last months, I could hardly blame him for thinking I remained unaware.

That streak of mud, now dried to dirt, was still there on his face. I rubbed my thumb across it, ostensibly to clean it off, but really just so I could touch him. Words hadn't deserted me, not this time. No, now I had the opposite problem: too many things I _could_ say crowding my head, so that I didn't know what I _should_ say.

Sutherland tolerated the touch, but he said, "You know, Dorian, I've mastered the art of cleaning my face. Most days I can do it all by myself." His tone was light, but I heard the complaint underneath: "Don't treat me like a child."

"I don't think you're a child," I said, answering the subtext and ignoring the words he'd actually said. My other hand threaded itself into his hair, which was dry after an evening spent sleeping by the fire. The fine strands tickled my knuckles as my fingers stroked across his scalp.

He swallowed hard, his mild irritation replaced by confusion, then by a rising hope that made me feel like an ass as well as a fool. That I hadn't set out to torture him didn't change that it was exactly what I'd done.

Well, I could start to make up for that now.

I kissed him. Lightly at first, just touching my lips to his as my thumb traced the line of his cheekbone, then a little harder, tasting his mouth the way I had wanted to for so long. He groaned, lips parting so I could explore more deeply, his tongue sliding along mine as his hands found my hips and squeezed.

My self-control vanished, not that I tried very hard to keep hold of it, and I backed him up against the cave wall without breaking the kiss. He was breathing in short gasps, hands moving up and across my chest, over my shoulders and down my back. He avoided the bruise, but otherwise, his hands were everywhere, as if he was trying to touch all of me before I changed my mind. Not that there was much danger of that.

I slid my own hands down, enjoying the way he arched into the touch, and the way he groaned when I laid my palm across the front of his trousers. But when I tried to go to my knees, he grabbed my elbows.

"No," he panted, and I was so startled I let him pull me back up. Who says no to having his cock sucked, when he's otherwise enjoying himself?

I leaned into Sutherland, pressing our bodies together, grinding my cock against his. With my mouth against his ear, I whispered, "I want to taste you."

He quite literally stopped breathing for a few seconds, his whole body trembling. When it went on long enough that I began to be concerned, I added in less seductive tones, "If you pass out, this will all become significantly less pleasant for both of us."

The noise he made was somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, but at least it required him to inhale to do it. "Please," he whispered back. "Please, I just want to touch you. Next time..." He stopped again, and it wasn't until I heard the hesitation in his next words that I realized the pause had nothing to do with a lack of air. "Next time?"

"Only one?" I teased, freeing an arm from his grip so I could pull his head to the side, giving me easy access to his neck and the hollow behind his ear. "I was hoping for next time _s_ ," I added, emphasizing the last sibilant.

He tried to answer, and I bit his earlobe gently, turning his words into a jumble of sounds without real meaning. Well, without meaning beyond, "Yes, do that again!" even if that wasn't what he'd been trying to say. So I did it again, then placed an open-mouthed kiss on the underside of his jaw, stubble rasping against my tongue.

"Next time," he managed, "we'll do whatever you want, but I've been dreaming of touching you for months. If you're down there, I can't reach hardly anything, and I just want to feel your skin."

And who could say no to _that_? Not me, certainly. "Next time," I agreed, and kissed him. He met me eagerly, mouth opening against mine, hands once more stroking up my back. His breath stuttered as I traced the outline of his cock through his trousers, then stopped again when I undid the laces.

"Breathe," I reminded him, just as Cassandra called from somewhere far too close, "Dorian?"

There wasn't time to pull apart before she came around a curve in the tunnel, saying, "Dorian, have you seen Sutherland? I don't--ah!"

Sutherland's chest heaved against mine, in a laugh he mostly managed to keep inside. I could feel the heat of his blush in the cheek pressed against mine, and I had to fight down a laugh of my own. "Yes, I've seen Sutherland very recently," I said dryly, shifting to block his body with mine. Not that Cassandra couldn't fill in the details, but there was no need to put everything on display. "Did you need him for something?"

"Ah, umm, never mind," she said, backing away and looking off to one side. "I didn't know where he'd gone, and with the darkspawn..." She trailed off, blushing almost as fiercely as Sutherland.

"I'm reasonably sure he's fine," I said, still in my driest tone. "Was there something else you needed?"

"N-no, nothing," she stammered, and fled. As soon as she reached the fire, everyone out there would know what she'd seen, even if she said nothing aloud: it would be written across her face in letters anyone could read.

Beneath my hand, Sutherland's cock had lost much of its interest. Somehow, I didn't think he would be willing to pick up where we left off, not now that everyone knew exactly what we were doing, but I gave him an experimental stroke anyway.

As I'd expected, he caught my hand and pushed me gently away. "I can't," he said quietly. "Not with all of them out there."

I used my free hand to hold him still for a kiss, long and deep, before I stepped back. "Next time," I said with a wink, and he gave me a relieved smile.

My robes were now dirty as well as wet, and I didn't even try to put them back on, instead wrapping the blanket around myself. The movement reminded me of the bruise on my shoulder, and I winced without meaning to.

"We still have a few potions," Sutherland said.

"It won't kill me," I said, settling the blanket carefully around my shoulders. "And I can work magic just fine with one hand. We've still got a long walk back to the nearest Inquisition camp, tomorrow." I certainly hoped that our return to camp wouldn't hinge on a single healing potion, but why risk it?

When we returned to the others and the fire, there was the expected teasing to be endured, including the obligatory cracks about stamina. One eye on Sutherland, I stood ready to squash all of it, but he took it with a good grace matched by a blush we could see even in firelight.

The teasing passed soon enough, their desire for sleep outweighing their desire to embarrass Sutherland and try to embarrass me. Cassandra and Bull stood guard just inside the cave, with small lights I'd conjured scattered for ten or so feet outside to save us from any more unexpected guests. Sutherland and I sat by the fire, huddled together under one of the blankets, and had a second supper. When I'd worn out my jaws on dried nug, I was reminded of our earlier conversation.

"Why _didn't_ you say something months ago?" I asked quietly, aware there were too many ears that might not be as asleep as they seemed.

"I've only known you for months," he pointed out. "And at first, I mostly thought you were annoying, always teasing me about one thing or another." His raised eyebrows invited me to challenge this.

"I do that to everyone."

"I figured that out soon enough, but even after, I didn't know much about you. Like whether you were even interested in men. It wasn't until you were going on and on _and on_ about the soldier you found in the empress's bed that I knew." He poked me in the knee. " _You_ could have said something, too."

"I was convinced you were infatuated with Trevelyan," I admitted.

I got a sideways look I couldn't read. Fortunately, Sutherland provided the translation. "I thought you and he were lovers."

"And I have no one to blame but myself for that, I know. Still, you must have figured out soon enough that if Trevelyan has a lover, he or she is the best kept secret in Thedas."

"I did, yes, but that didn't really help. The more I got to know you, the more ridiculous it was to think I had any chance at all. I mean, look at you. You're handsome, intelligent, educated, brave, witty..." He shrugged.

"Do go on," I said, and smiled when he looked at me, startled. "I'm always happy to let anyone ramble about my virtues."

He rolled his eyes. "Conceited, too. Did I say conceited?"

"Now you did."

"Oh good. Mustn't forget that." Under the blanket, his hand found mine and held on.

Hand holding? I really had returned to adolescence, I noted with bemusement even as I turned my hand palm up to meet his. I kept a straight face, lest Sutherland think I was laughing at him rather than at myself.

"I'm serious," he said, and he certainly looked it. "What could I say that would make a man like you want someone like me? A boy with no experience and no skills, who can't even keep from getting hit over the head when he has the Inquisitor to protect him!" His grip on my hand was painfully tight. "Maker's breath, Dorian, how many languages can you read? I can't even manage one!"

"You can't read?" I blurted out, then caught his hand when he tried to pull it back. "Stop it," I said sharply, reminding myself to keep my voice down. "You caught me by surprise, that's all, especially since the books you gave me were always exactly right."

"I can read a little," he muttered. "But it's hard. I don't know why, plenty of people have tried to teach me, I just can't make the letters hold still long enough to catch their meaning. My sister used to read to me, and I loved that, but doing the reading myself was always the worst kind of punishment."

I'd never met anyone who couldn't learn to read, unless it was simply because they couldn't be bothered to exert themselves, but I'd also seen some of what Sutherland had accomplished for the Inquisition. He certainly had no objection to hard work. Which made me wonder, for an uncomfortable moment, if I had ever written off as lazy someone who suffered from this same problem. Shaking off that thought, I pulled him close enough to steal a quick kiss. "I can read well enough for both of us. Why let such a small thing get in your way?"

"Dorian." There was a world of weary patience in his voice. "For once, consider that I might know more about something than you."

"A difficult mental exercise, but I'll try."

One corner of his mouth twitched before he sobered, looking down at the blankets over our hands. "I don't know much about Tevinter, but I assume you were taught to read when you were young, and you probably learned it without much effort."

"Some languages were harder than others."

"But you learned them. Not just one language, but many. You didn't spend hours and days and months staring at the same lines on a slate, no more able to understand them than you could when you started. No one ever looked at you like you were stupid, or threw up their hands in disgust and said you were hopeless."

Clearly, he hadn't met any of my tutors, but I kept my mouth shut for once. Even as a child, I hadn't believed them when they made snide comments about my intelligence. The true legacy of the magisters: an arrogance bred into me every bit as much as my magic.

"This isn't a small thing to me," he whispered, still not meeting my eyes. "No one has ever called you stupid, and I've been called that by at least a dozen teachers. Good teachers, too, men and women who taught other children without any such problems."

I let the blanket slip from one shoulder so I could touch his face, pressing up on his chin until he looked at me. "I never thought you were stupid. Inexperienced, yes, but that's an eminently curable condition." I smiled. "Even when I thought you were a child, I never thought you were a stupid one."

He laughed weakly, leaning into my hand. The pressure made my shoulder ache, and I didn't care. I kissed him again because I could, then again, and again, until Cassandra cleared her throat pointedly from across the cave.

"Don't look if you don't like it," I called to her, but I stopped kissing Sutherland and pulled the blanket around my shoulder again.

"I'm not _looking_ ," she called back, "but I can't hold my shield and put my fingers in my ears at the same time."

Speaking of ears, Sutherland's were more red than the firelight would account for, and it didn't help when Bull said, "She may not be looking, but I definitely am."

"So," I said quietly, pulling Sutherland's attention back to me and shutting Bull and Cassandra out of the conversation. "If you don't read well, how did you manage to pick which books you gave me?"

"Trevelyan helped. I'd show him whatever my crew and I had found over the last few days, and he'd tell me what they were, and if the Inquisition already had a copy, and whether they were well or poorly written." Sutherland looked embarrassed. "He and Cullen tried to help me, but every time I saw you, it all went right out of my head."

"You went to the Inquisitor and the Commander for romantic advice? About me?" I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

Apparently I didn't do as good a job as I'd hoped, because Sutherland's shoulders hunched. "Who else was I supposed to ask?"

"Ahhh," I said, because the only answer I could think of was, "Anyone else." Which I didn't say, but it was a near thing.

He shot me a look, half embarrassed and half exasperated. "Who else could I ask?" he repeated. "Cassandra knows less about this than I do, Vivienne and Blackwall scare me, and asking Varric means it might end up in his next book."

"Solas?" I said, mostly to get a reaction. "Sera?"

"Sera?" he demanded, then glanced toward Cassandra and Bull when he realized he'd been louder than he meant. "She'd have laughed until she fell off the roof. And Solas? I might as well ask Cole, the answer would make as much sense."

I tilted my head towards Bull, without saying his name in case that drew his attention.

The look I got then was definitely more exasperated than embarrassed. "He'd have told me to walk right up to you and say, 'Good afternoon, Dorian. Let's fuck.'"

"In the middle of the afternoon?" I murmured demurely, swallowing a laugh.

"Any time at all," Sutherland said, looking up at me through his eyelashes.

"It's not nice to tease."

"I thought you weren't a nice man."

Under the blanket, I slid a hand down his thigh, stopping short of his cock. "I'm most definitely not a nice man," I said into his ear. "I look forward to giving you a few examples later."

The leg under my hand was trembling, but his voice was steady when he asked, "Only a few?" His lips brushed my ear as he spoke, and I wondered what Trevelyan would do if I roused everyone now to begin the walk back to camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I've tried to write fluffy sex, so I hope I didn't overdo it with the silliness.

The trip back to Skyhold was as tedious as I'd expected, and gave no one any privacy. Trevelyan pushed us through the daylight hours, and while I could have snatched a few moments alone with Sutherland, my self-control had returned. I was determined that there would be a bed, and a door I could bolt. Anyone who thinks that sex in the woods is romantic has never tried it, and certainly never tried it with the Iron Bull leering in the background.

I had cause to regret that decision when Trevelyan whisked Sutherland away the second we passed between Skyhold's gates. He barely had time to give me a regretful look before Cullen was there with a map and a hundred questions about where the darkspawn might have come from. Left unexpectedly to my own devices, I retreated to my room. I hadn't seen a proper bath since I left Tevinter, but at least I could shave, and wash off the mud, and put on clothes that didn't reek of sweat and mildew, even if it was just an old shirt and a pair of trousers. That done, I lay on the bed and read one of the books Sutherland had given me.

A quiet knock on the door woke me from a nap I didn't remember starting. A little confused, it took me a moment to remember where I was, and another moment to realize who was probably knocking. I got the door open just as Sutherland was turning away, his face set.

"You could give me enough time to cross the room before you decide I'm avoiding you," I said dryly. "And if you're avoiding me, why bother coming up here in the first place?"

"I'm not avoiding you!" He turned back toward me, startled.

"Then why do you think _I'm_ avoiding _you_?"

His mouth opened and closed a few times, and then he grinned. "Because I'm an idiot."

"I'm reasonably sure we discussed that already," I said, stepping aside and gesturing him into the room. "And of the two of us, I think I've been the bigger idiot lately."

There was an awkward moment after I closed the door, when we both stood in silence looking at each other, until I reminded myself that one of us did actually know what he was doing. Not that all my experience had been much in evidence lately, but perhaps it was time to put it to good use. I closed the distance between us, one hand on his shirt and the other winding through his damp hair. He'd taken the time to shave and wash, so his skin smelled clean, and his face was smooth except for a small spot under his jaw that was still rough with stubble. I grazed it with my thumb on the way by, making a mental note to come back to it later.

His eyes were wide with surprise as I kissed him, and he made a noise that could have meant anything. Then his hands tugged me closer, and that needed no interpretation. I licked into his mouth, fingers rubbing slow circles on his scalp as I controlled the kiss, keeping it from becoming sloppy. I'd had plenty of time to think during the last few days, and I suspected Sutherland hadn't only been referring to fighting when he'd mentioned his lack of experience.

I could have asked, I suppose, but there are few things more likely to wilt a man's cock than asking him, "You _have_ done this before?" What can he say in response, after all? If the answer is yes, it's embarrassing that anyone thought otherwise, and if the answer is no, it's embarrassing _period_. So I kept my suspicions to myself as I kept control of the kiss, and Sutherland didn't seem to mind. His hips pressed forward against mine eagerly enough, and his hands were already under my shirt, pushing the fabric out of the way as he spread his fingers over my ribs.

Those hands were shaking, trembling in a way that confirmed my suspicions at the same time it made me glad I hadn't asked. Shaking or not, they felt wonderful as they stroked me, warm and rough against my sides and the small of my back. I kissed my way along his jaw, pausing to lick that stubbled spot I had noticed earlier and drawing a moan from Sutherland as I sucked the skin.

A few careful steps put him up against the wall beside the door. I even managed not to slam him against it this time, as I had in the cave, though I doubt he would have noticed if I had. His hands busy with my shirt and his too-quick breath was warm against the side of my neck. When I bit his neck lightly, he moaned again, the sound going straight to my cock.

We pulled apart just long enough to get our shirts off, and then Sutherland caught my mouth again. He was a quick learner, I had to give him that, with what little capacity for thought remained to me. Not that he was thinking any more than I was: I don't think he so much as twitched when his bare skin came in contact with the cold stone wall. Instead, he pulled me closer, fingers hooked in the waist of my trousers, the backs of his knuckles brushing the hair on my stomach until his hand moved around to cup my ass.

I slid one of my thighs between his as he reeled me in, pressing up against him until his hips jerked and his head fell back against the wall with a thump. "Dorian," he gasped, and my name had never sounded so sweet to my ears.

"Shhhh." My mouth returned to that place on his jaw he had missed while shaving. The sound he made as I worried the skin gently between my teeth was extremely gratifying. As close as we were, there was hardly room for my hand between us, but I managed to twist until I had one hand planted on the wall beside his head and the other pressing against his cock through his trousers.

"Please," he whispered, eyes tightly closed.

It was the work of seconds to get his laces undone, and then I had my hand around him at last. He made a strangled sound, thrusting into my grip while his fingers tried to leave permanent dents in my back. I could hardly see what I was doing, but I could feel heat, and soft skin sliding over hardness, and I pressed my own cock against his thigh as I put my mouth beside his ear.

"Last time," I murmured, "you promised I could taste you."

His hips jerked again, and his hand moved from my back to my neck, squeezing in time to my strokes. The hand on my ass pulled me even tighter against him.

I passed my thumb over the head of his cock, picking up a few drops of moisture, then lifted my hand and leaned my upper body back, staying pressed against him from the waist down. His hips pressed forward, seeking the touch I had just taken away. I waited until his eyes opened, until they'd focused on me, then licked the pad of my thumb, deliberately holding his gaze. His eyes widened before he squeezed them shut again, and his breathing grew more ragged.

Smiling, I put my hand back on his cock and kissed him. He tried to return the kiss but couldn't seem to make his lips work properly, only able to gasp for breath against my mouth. I bit his lower lip as I stroked him, enjoying the way his body moved under mine.

With my thigh pressed between his, I could hardly miss the way the muscles in his legs tightened, telling me he was close. Turning my face into his hair, I breathed in the damp heat of his skin, exhaling against his ear. A shudder ran down his body as I let my fingers move between his thighs to press on the skin behind his balls, just for a moment before I stroked him again, faster than before.

He thrust up into my hand in short, hard jerks, the muscles in his neck straining, until he ground out my name between clenched teeth as his release rolled over him, filling my hand and spattering my stomach. The sounds he made had me rocking against his leg, pressing in while his whole body pressed out. I held on, my weight and the wall at his back keeping him upright when his knees buckled. His head came to rest on my shoulder, his hands still holding me tightly.

When I pulled away, he mumbled a protest. I kissed him, just a quick brush of lips despite his attempts to make it more, and said, "You know, there's this wonderful thing called a bed. Very modern. Much more comfortable than stone walls, even nicely mortared ones."

He blinked a few times, looking past my shoulder as if seeing the room for the first time. Which might actually have been the case, as his eyes had been closed or rolled back in his head almost since he'd crossed the threshold.

"We're allowed to do this in a bed?" he said in tones of mock surprise, without releasing his hold on me.

I chuckled and slipped out of his grip, headed for the wash basin. "Some people even limit themselves to _only_ doing it in bed."

"Poor bastards don't know what they're missing." By the direction of his voice, he had taken my hint.

It didn't take me long to clean my hand and stomach. With my back to Sutherland, I slipped out of my trousers, my shirt still lying on the floor where it had fallen when he pulled it off earlier. I bent sideways in a deep stretch, partly to ease the muscles but mostly in hopes that Sutherland was watching. A quick bend to the other side for symmetry, and that was all the patience I had for that particular game.

The look on Sutherland's face was everything I could have hoped for. He'd taken both of his boots off, the second one forgotten in his hands as he stared at me. His gaze was so intent I swore I could feel it running over my skin as I crossed the room to him. Not until I was standing almost between his knees did he recall himself. He tossed aside the boot in favor of putting his hands on my hips, thumbs stroking gently along the hollows beside the bones. I let him pull me closer, and now it was my turn to stare, unable to look away as the distance shrank between my cock and his mouth.

An inch away, so close I could feel his breath, he paused and considered the terrain with intense concentration, a man planning an assault on a fortified position. The look, his brows drawn sharply down, was actually sort of endearing.

I rubbed my thumb across the furrow above his nose. "You're thinking too much," I said teasingly.

He looked up. The uncertainty was back in his face for a second, but when I smiled at him, he smiled back and wrapped those smiling lips around me. My hands pushed his hair back from his face so I could see, the sight of my cock sliding into his mouth enough to make me breathless. When he came back up, he turned his face into my hand for a second, leaving a wet kiss against my palm before he put his mouth back on my cock.

Enough enthusiasm, it turns out, can make up for a lack of experience, and Sutherland was very enthusiastic. As for gaining experience, I would be more than happy to let him practice on me.

His hand and mouth moved together over me, tongue and fingers teasing under the head, stroking the shaft. The first time he went all the way down, his hand and his mouth between them covering the whole length of my cock, it was all I could do not to grab his head and hold him there. I shifted my hands to his shoulders (less dangerous territory) and let myself revel in the heat building at the base of my spine.

There were a hundred things I wanted to do to him, and this hadn't been where I'd intended to end up, but the sight of him, eyes closed in concentration with his mouth around me, wiped away all my careful planning. Watching him was its own pleasure, and there would be other opportunities. His free hand moved between my legs, tentatively imitating what I had done to him earlier, pressing one knuckle against sensitive skin.

It was so unexpected I dug my fingers into his shoulder and gasped. He pulled away and looked up at me, eyes wide. I shook my head, needing a moment to remember how to talk.

"Was that...?"

"Good," I finished for him, breathing hard. I managed a grin. "But I must have been doing it wrong, earlier, if you were paying enough attention to remember it."

He shook his head once, hard, but before he could put his mouth back around me, I stopped him with a hand on his forehead. "I'm close," I said, and the sight of his pupils dilating did nothing for my self-control. "Just use your hands." Not that I didn't want his mouth on me, but if this really was his first time...

"Do you like this?" he asked, and ducked his head away from my hand to run his tongue down the length of my cock.

I sucked in a quick breath, my control eroding faster than I could shore it up. "Yes, but..."

"Then enjoy it," he said, and that was as close to being a nice man as I was prepared to be. With his face flushed and his lips ever so slightly swollen, my cock resting against the lower one, he was the picture of debauchery. He watched me through his eyelashes as he lowered his mouth halfway down my shaft, and I gave up the fight.

He looked very pleased with himself, and the hum he made around my cock certainly didn't displease me. His hands and mouth moved with more confidence, gaining speed as my breathing grew ragged and I forgot what language I was supposed to be speaking. In the end, I forgot words completely as my body shook, and I thrust into his mouth. The heat that had been building finally caught fire, leaving me weak and shaking when it passed.

Sutherland caught me before I fell, his hands on my hips giving me time to remember how my knees worked. "We still didn't really make it to the bed, did we?" I said, voice no steadier than my legs.

I felt him smile against my stomach, half a second before he fell backward and pulled me down on top of him. We even landed mostly on the bed, without doing each other any damage likely to ruin my plans for the rest of the evening. That's surely some kind of miracle. There was a fair amount of thrashing as Sutherland finally got rid of his trousers, made more difficult by his refusal to let go of me, but eventually we settled into the mattress.

Where, for what felt like the first time since I'd left Minrathous, I was too warm. Sutherland gave off heat like a blacksmith's forge, and while I was going to enjoy that once the sun went down, it was leaving me unpleasantly sticky right then. Not-nice man that I am, I normally would have banished him to his side of the bed, but even I'm not completely heartless. Besides, I might have been sticky, but I was also surprised to find I rather enjoyed just lying there with him.

Finally, I thought of a solution that didn't make me feel like an ass. "Do you mind if I open the window?" I asked casually. "I'm, ah, a bit warm..."

I didn't get to finish, because Sutherland rolled away from me, laughing. "Oh thank the Maker. I thought I was going to suffocate." He kicked the blankets off and scooted back until he was lying with his back half against the wall, leaving two thirds of the mattress to me.

And this is what being nice gets me. We could have both been comfortable from the start, if I hadn't felt some misguided impulse toward niceness. About to drag myself out of bed, I made the mistake of looking back at Sutherland, who was watching me with a smile.

"What?" I asked, smiling back.

"Admiring the view," he said.

I leaned over to kiss him, and that proved to be a grievous error.

It was a long time before I remembered the window, and by then, I no longer cared.

###

Between one thing and another, I was late for my chess game with Cullen the next morning. He was already seated in his habitual place, turning one of the pieces over in his hands while he stared at nothing. Only when my shadow fell over him did he look up, squinting into the bright morning sun.

That squint changed to a smile as I sat down, a smile that had more than a little smirk about it. "Did you have a pleasant evening, Dorian?" he asked, with exaggerated sincerity.

"Quite pleasant, thank you," I said, raising an eyebrow at him in challenge. "Did you want to play chess, or gossip like an old woman?"

"I have to pick one?" He set down the piece he'd been toying with, and gestured expansively at the board. "You can have the first move."

He waited until I'd done so, then made one of his own without even looking. "So," he said, drawing the word out. "Sutherland?"

"I don't have any choice about this, do I?"

"Well, you can choose whether you participate in the conversation, or whether I just speculate wildly on my own."

"Vishante kaffas!" There was no heat in the curse, though.

"Just satisfy my curiosity on one thing: did Sutherland finally say something, or did you finally figure it out? I'm guessing the first, since I hit you over the head with it more than once and you ignored me."

"You'd be wrong, then. I 'finally' figured it out, no thanks to you or Trevelyan." No need to mention exactly how obvious Sutherland had been.

"What? No thanks to _us_?" He looked deeply offended.

"The least you could have done was tell him to stop babbling about Trevelyan every time he saw me. I'd have realized far sooner, but for that."

Cullen held up both hands in front of his chest, palms toward me. "Don't blame me for that. We both told him not to do it. Told him repeatedly, in fact, _and_ tried to get him to talk to you without us there."

"Hmmm," I said, and moved one of my pieces across the board. "Clearly, he wasn't very good at following either bit of advice. He all but shouted 'Don't leave me!' whenever Trevelyan walked away for even a second. Did he listen to anything you said?"

"You tell me," Cullen said, and, startled, I looked up to find him watching me, no longer smiling. "The first thing I told him was that any man who wanted a needy lover wasn't a man I'd want to pursue."

"You don't want to pursue any man, Commander."

He fixed me with a stare that might have cowed his soldiers but which made absolutely no impact on me. "Are you so in love with the sound of your own voice that you'd rather say my part for me? Or did you actually want the rest of the answer?"

"I'd prefer to sit here a moment and imagine you pursuing me." I closed my eyes and smiled beatifically. Then I sighed, opened my eyes, and said, "Carry on."

Cullen looked far too serious. "I told him that anything was a waste of time if you saw him as a child. That he has to have his own life and his own interests beyond trailing after you and Trevelyan like a puppy. You never struck me as the kind of man who wants to be the entirety of someone's world."

"No, just the center of it," I said, because I didn't know what else to say.

"So I repeat: you tell me. Did I give him good advice, and did he listen to it?"

I was silent, then, caught for once without a glib comment. Eventually, I said quietly, "Thank you."

"For what? Keeping Sutherland from tripping over his own cock?"

"I do so love it when you talk dirty to me." Glibness never deserts me for long.

"That's Sutherland's job now. And besides, he did the hard part himself, which was actually making himself useful to the Inquisition, rather than being Trevelyan's pet. You don't owe me any thanks, I just pointed him in the right direction."

Almost unwillingly, I said, "I...always thought my preferences made you uncomfortable."

"A lot of things make me uncomfortable," Cullen said. "That doesn't make them wrong, and I'm old enough to know that." He gave me a half smile, only the unscarred side of his mouth turning up. "But I try not to hold it against you, that you're a mage."

That startled a laugh out of me. "And I appreciate your forbearance, Commander."

"Of course you do," he murmured. "Now. Are we playing chess, or gossiping like old women?"

"I thought we didn't have to choose?" I said with a smile. I'd completely lost track of whose turn it was, but since I was reasonably sure Cullen had as well, I decided that made it my turn, and bent my full attention to the game.


End file.
